"All down the loose-walled lanes in archin' bowersThe barb'ry droops its strings o' golden flowers,Whose shrinkin' hearts the school-gals love to tryWithpins. They'll worry yourn so, boys, bime-by."
"All down the loose-walled lanes in archin' bowersThe barb'ry droops its strings o' golden flowers,Whose shrinkin' hearts the school-gals love to tryWithpins. They'll worry yourn so, boys, bime-by."
Those "shrinkin' hearts" of the barberry blossom, so long the wonder and amusement of children, including many children of adult growth, have, so far as I know, herein found their first and only historian—historian, but not interpreter. For Hosea Biglow, nor his literary parent, James Russell Lowell, never dreamed of the significance of this strange spectacle in the shrinkin' hearts of the barberry bloom when surprised with the point of a pin.
But the bee can tell us all about it. He has known this singular trick in the barberry for ages, and kept the secret all to himself. Only comparatively recently (1859 or thereabouts) did the secret leak out, when Darwin, by the previous hints of several other philosophers, discovered the key which unlocked the mystery of this as well as thousands of other similar riddles among the flowers.
These strange "manners" of the blossoms had then a deep vital principle at their base. They had notalwaysbeen thus, but had gradually, through long ages of time, changed and modified their shapes, colors, odors, nectar, and their manners for one purpose—to insuretheir pollenbeing conveyed away upon the bodies of insects and carried to asecondflower, and there placed upon the stigma to insure fertilization and development of the seed.
"In archin' bowers"
The plans, devices, tricks, and pranks by which flowers accomplish this result are past belief. I have indicated only a few by way of a hint, and in previous papers on the bluebottle and figwort have described others, but none quite similar to the barberry.
Fig. 1
We all know the barberry, the prickly, thornybarberry, whether with its "strings o' golden flowers" or its drooping clusters of brilliant scarlet acid berries. But each one of those berries is but a token of a bee's visit, as we shall presently see. At Fig. 1 I have shown a plan of the barberry blossom seen from below, its yellow sepals and petals open, and opposite each of the inner set, and pressed against it, a stamen. This stamen is shown below in three stages—closed, partly open, and fully open—the queer little ear-shaped lids finally drawn up, showing the pollen-pockets, and also withdrawing a portion of the pollen from the cavity. At the centre is seen the circular tip of the ovary which finally becomes the berry—that is, when the little scheme here planned has been fulfilled. This circular form represents the tip of the ovary, and the little toothed rim thestigma. Now what is the intention here expressed? This construction represents a plan, first, to invite a bee—this is done by its color, its fragrance, and its nectar, which is secreted in a gland at the base of each petal, near the centre of the flower; secondly, to make that bee bear away the pollen; thirdly, to cause that same bee to place this pollen on the stigma rim of the next flower he visits. In Fig. 2 we see how beautifully this plan is carried out by the insect, without his suspecting how perfectly he has been utilized. At A we see the same flower cut opensideways, the waiting, expectant stamens tucked away at the sides, leaving a free opening to the base of the flower. Now comes our bee. He must needs hang back downward to sip at the drooping flower. As his tongue enters, and finally touches the base of these stamens,clap! they come one after another against his tongue and face, and there deposit their load of pollen (B). The bee, who has doubtless got over his surprise at this demonstration—if, indeed, he ever had any—now flies to another blossom, perhaps onthe same cluster (C). Entering it as before, the notched edge of the stigmatic rim comes in contact with the pollen on his tongue and face, and the flower is thus fertilized by pollen from another barberry blossom, the intention of the flower now perfectly realized incross-fertilization.
Fig. 2
The seeds fromcross-fertilized flowers are almost invariably more vigorous, and thus yield more vigorous plants, than those of flowers fertilized with their ownpollen, and this is why most flowers have necessarily developed some means by which cross-fertilization can be secured. And this has been done through evolution working on the lines ofnaturalselection, those seedlings which had originally happened, by a variation in the flower, to be thus favored by some chance peculiarity which insured cross-fertilization, winning in the struggle with the previous weaker individuals, and finally supplanting them altogether.
HARDLYa season passes without my being in receipt of one or more inquiries, personal or by letter, concerning this snowy brood which haunts the alders in the swamp or along the road-side, and which envelops the smaller branches in its dense, feathery fringe. It is often one of the most frequent and conspicuous incidents in a country walk during its season, and its season ranges from its height in early summer until the frost. And yet how few there are, even of those, perhaps, who pass it every day, who have any definite idea of its character!I know one rustic who claimed that it was "dry-rot," or a "speeshy of mould"; but the woolly phenomenon is commonly dismissed by the rural mind with the observation that it is "bugsof some sort." In this case the haphazard verdict happens to be the literal truth, though the speaker little suspects how closely he has discriminated. But his present skill is easily accounted for when we remember that only yesterday he had a great deal to say about "June-bugs" and "lightning-bugs." He will tell you all about "lady-bugs," too, and "rose-bugs," and "horn-bugs," and "pinch-bugs"—and has he not often given his strong opinion on "potato-bugs"?—not one of which insects is in the least entitled to the name of "bug." Only this very morning he asked me if I was "as fond of goin' buggin' as I used to be." But to the granger laity the entomologist is always a "bug-hunter," even though no single species of a bug is to be found in his entire insect cabinet.What, then, is a bug, and why is the discrimination of "bugs of some sort" so truly applicable to this brood with the snowy wool which grows upon the alder twigs?The term "bug" has almost become a popular synonym for "insect." All bugsareinsects, 'tis true, but it by no means follows that all insects are bugs. The "squash-bug" is almost the only insect that is known by its true title in the popular vocabulary, for this disgusting insect is in truth a typical bug.
HARDLYa season passes without my being in receipt of one or more inquiries, personal or by letter, concerning this snowy brood which haunts the alders in the swamp or along the road-side, and which envelops the smaller branches in its dense, feathery fringe. It is often one of the most frequent and conspicuous incidents in a country walk during its season, and its season ranges from its height in early summer until the frost. And yet how few there are, even of those, perhaps, who pass it every day, who have any definite idea of its character!
I know one rustic who claimed that it was "dry-rot," or a "speeshy of mould"; but the woolly phenomenon is commonly dismissed by the rural mind with the observation that it is "bugsof some sort." In this case the haphazard verdict happens to be the literal truth, though the speaker little suspects how closely he has discriminated. But his present skill is easily accounted for when we remember that only yesterday he had a great deal to say about "June-bugs" and "lightning-bugs." He will tell you all about "lady-bugs," too, and "rose-bugs," and "horn-bugs," and "pinch-bugs"—and has he not often given his strong opinion on "potato-bugs"?—not one of which insects is in the least entitled to the name of "bug." Only this very morning he asked me if I was "as fond of goin' buggin' as I used to be." But to the granger laity the entomologist is always a "bug-hunter," even though no single species of a bug is to be found in his entire insect cabinet.
What, then, is a bug, and why is the discrimination of "bugs of some sort" so truly applicable to this brood with the snowy wool which grows upon the alder twigs?
The term "bug" has almost become a popular synonym for "insect." All bugsareinsects, 'tis true, but it by no means follows that all insects are bugs. The "squash-bug" is almost the only insect that is known by its true title in the popular vocabulary, for this disgusting insect is in truth a typical bug.
But who would ever think of calling the whizzingharvest-fly a "bug?" Rather will they persist that he is a "locust," which he is not. He should be called the cicada. The "grasshopper" of the fields is the true locust, whose swarms of certain species in the Orient have so often shut out the sun, and whose voracious feeding has laid waste whole square miles of vegetation in a single night.
But such a swarm of locusts as we read of in Scripture, and frequently in the history of modern times and in our own country, would be comparatively tame and merely amusing affairs were they composed of our so-called "locust"—he of the whizzing timbrel in the sultry August noon. For this insect has no teeth, and could not bite a blade of grass if it wanted to. And herein we see one of the peculiarities which constitute him a "bug," and which also includes in the same company our woolly swarm upon the alder twigs. In place of teeth these insects are supplied with a beak for sucking the juices of plants. If we carefully examine the dense snowy mass we find it composed of small tufts closely crowded together, each tuft being borne upon the plump body of a small insect whose beak is deeply sunk into the tender bark.
I have separated one of the little creatures, and furnished his portrait as he appears when viewed through a magnifying-glass, only the lower portionof his body being covered with the wool, his head and legs being usually concealed beneath the pluming growth of his neighbors. This feathery growth seems of the most delicate consistency—in truth, more suggestive of white "mould" than any other natural substance, and seems to proceed from pores in the plump body beneath it. The slightest breath wafts the cobwebby tips of the fringe, and the least rude touch easily dislodges it, exposing the round, naked body of what is now clearly seen to be an aphis, or plant-louse, which nature, for some reason, has seen fit to clothe with swan's-down.
In early June the white down first appears on the alders in tiny patches here and there. This gradually extends down the stem, at length, perhaps,completely encircling it, and thus remaining for weeks, the full-grown aphis at last attaining a length of about three-sixteenths of an inch.
A similar brood is sometimes seen in profusion on beech-trees and also on the apple-tree. But if we imagine that because these insects are without teeth they are therefore harmless, we are greatly mistaken. What they lack in individual effect they fully compensate for in numbers, and the combined attack of a girdle of thousands of these sucking beaks, for weeks absorbing the sap, may often result in the death of the branch beyond them.
Dr. Harris, in his admirable work on "Insects Injurious to Vegetation," tells us that "in Gloucestershire, England, so many apple-trees were destroyed by these lice in the year 1810 that the making of cider had to be abandoned. So infested were many of the trees that they seemed, at a short distance, as if they had been white-washed."Other insects, such as the flea and the mosquito, are also possessed of similar "beaks for sucking," but neither of these examples is a bug, both beingflies—the flea merely a wingless fly with wonderfully developed legs. Our entomology tells us that a bug is a member of theHemiptera, meaning "half-winged;" the wings of the typical bug, like the squash-bug, being transparentfor only about half their length. But as in the flea among flies, here we find myriads of true bugs without a vestige of wings, and others, like the cicada, with ample wings as clear and free from opacity as those of a fly. It would take more space than I have at disposal to tell precisely what a bug really is entomologically, such a diversity of forms is presented in the family. But the sucking beak, and the fact that the average bug isborna bug from the egg, instead of going through the usual transformation of larva, chrysalis, and imago, will have to suffice usfor the present. Here, for instance, is the great sub-tribe of the aphis, to which our woolly specimen belongs. What is their life history? The eggs of the mother aphis are laid in the autumn, giving birth to the baby swarm in the following spring. In an almost incredible time they have multiplied to such an extent that the twigs of our roses and many other plants are lost to view in the encircling swarm. The secret of this wonderful arithmetical progression may be seen in the following quotation, which applies to aphides in general:"The plant-louse of the apple-tree produces one hundred young ones in a single generation, these being born alive, and each of these brings forth others in equal number, until, at the end of the tenth generation, which is reached before the coming of frost, the original aphis has become the mother of one quintillion of her species."But up to this time nearly all the aphides have been females; in the last generation the winged males appear, and are seen assembled among the swarm—the last mother brood laying the eggs which are to start anew the cycle of life the following season.So far as I have observed, however, the woolly species of aphis never acquires wings, nature having in a measure compensated for their absence in the growth of plumy down, which, according toHarris, is so buoyant as to enable the insect to be borne upon the breeze from tree to tree. To this resource he attributes the spread of the wingless apple-lice species. But it would take a stiff breeze thus to waft the body of our plump dweller on the alder, unless, indeed, in his younger days.
Dr. Harris, in his admirable work on "Insects Injurious to Vegetation," tells us that "in Gloucestershire, England, so many apple-trees were destroyed by these lice in the year 1810 that the making of cider had to be abandoned. So infested were many of the trees that they seemed, at a short distance, as if they had been white-washed."
Other insects, such as the flea and the mosquito, are also possessed of similar "beaks for sucking," but neither of these examples is a bug, both beingflies—the flea merely a wingless fly with wonderfully developed legs. Our entomology tells us that a bug is a member of theHemiptera, meaning "half-winged;" the wings of the typical bug, like the squash-bug, being transparentfor only about half their length. But as in the flea among flies, here we find myriads of true bugs without a vestige of wings, and others, like the cicada, with ample wings as clear and free from opacity as those of a fly. It would take more space than I have at disposal to tell precisely what a bug really is entomologically, such a diversity of forms is presented in the family. But the sucking beak, and the fact that the average bug isborna bug from the egg, instead of going through the usual transformation of larva, chrysalis, and imago, will have to suffice usfor the present. Here, for instance, is the great sub-tribe of the aphis, to which our woolly specimen belongs. What is their life history? The eggs of the mother aphis are laid in the autumn, giving birth to the baby swarm in the following spring. In an almost incredible time they have multiplied to such an extent that the twigs of our roses and many other plants are lost to view in the encircling swarm. The secret of this wonderful arithmetical progression may be seen in the following quotation, which applies to aphides in general:
"The plant-louse of the apple-tree produces one hundred young ones in a single generation, these being born alive, and each of these brings forth others in equal number, until, at the end of the tenth generation, which is reached before the coming of frost, the original aphis has become the mother of one quintillion of her species."
But up to this time nearly all the aphides have been females; in the last generation the winged males appear, and are seen assembled among the swarm—the last mother brood laying the eggs which are to start anew the cycle of life the following season.
So far as I have observed, however, the woolly species of aphis never acquires wings, nature having in a measure compensated for their absence in the growth of plumy down, which, according toHarris, is so buoyant as to enable the insect to be borne upon the breeze from tree to tree. To this resource he attributes the spread of the wingless apple-lice species. But it would take a stiff breeze thus to waft the body of our plump dweller on the alder, unless, indeed, in his younger days.
ONa certain afternoon last August, having just completed a particularly laborious work upon which I had long been engaged, and with my mind naturally inclined towards relaxation in my plans for the morrow's labors, my eye instinctively sought a certain note-book upon my table. It was a note-book containing memoranda on a wide variety of Nature topics, but presented in a particular place a choice, selected list of topics under the title of "Young People." A large number of these memoranda were crossed off with a pencil line, which told me that these particular topics had already served their purpose, weresufficiently elaborated in the columns of the "Young People," and were now safely preserved between the covers of my book "Sharp Eyes."But what an array of items were still left from the winnowing, which had after all culled only a few of the best! Indeed, it was hard to decide which should be selected as the subject for the morrow. Let's see; shall it be those travelling underground buds of the Clintonia, with all their leaves and flowers ready for next spring? No, I must wait a little for these a month later and they will be more mature, and I must make my drawing from nature. Then there is that queer blue oil beetle, with his queerer history; that slender-waisted wasp that digs its deep hole in the dirt, and those round holes in the path, with their mysterious hocus-pocus.Yes, it shall be these, the magic holes that disappear as you cautiously look at them, or suddenly start into view as you approach—deep holes, the diameter of a slate-pencil, with apparently nothing in them, but which in reality have a good deal of mischief at the bottom of them or at the top of them, as it happens. "Ant holes," most people call them. Many an ant, doubtless, goes into them, but not because he wants to. "Yes," I thought, "my next chapter shall be devoted to these queer holes and their shy tenants, which so few people ever see or even dream of."
ONa certain afternoon last August, having just completed a particularly laborious work upon which I had long been engaged, and with my mind naturally inclined towards relaxation in my plans for the morrow's labors, my eye instinctively sought a certain note-book upon my table. It was a note-book containing memoranda on a wide variety of Nature topics, but presented in a particular place a choice, selected list of topics under the title of "Young People." A large number of these memoranda were crossed off with a pencil line, which told me that these particular topics had already served their purpose, weresufficiently elaborated in the columns of the "Young People," and were now safely preserved between the covers of my book "Sharp Eyes."
But what an array of items were still left from the winnowing, which had after all culled only a few of the best! Indeed, it was hard to decide which should be selected as the subject for the morrow. Let's see; shall it be those travelling underground buds of the Clintonia, with all their leaves and flowers ready for next spring? No, I must wait a little for these a month later and they will be more mature, and I must make my drawing from nature. Then there is that queer blue oil beetle, with his queerer history; that slender-waisted wasp that digs its deep hole in the dirt, and those round holes in the path, with their mysterious hocus-pocus.
Yes, it shall be these, the magic holes that disappear as you cautiously look at them, or suddenly start into view as you approach—deep holes, the diameter of a slate-pencil, with apparently nothing in them, but which in reality have a good deal of mischief at the bottom of them or at the top of them, as it happens. "Ant holes," most people call them. Many an ant, doubtless, goes into them, but not because he wants to. "Yes," I thought, "my next chapter shall be devoted to these queer holes and their shy tenants, which so few people ever see or even dream of."
Having thus decided, I closed my note-book, but the experience of the next few minutes quite reversed my plans, and led to the completion of an entirely different article, or the pictures for it at least, on the same afternoon, without awaiting the morrow.
I had barely closed the note-book when, chancing to glance out of my studio window, I observed a well-known neighbor, a thrifty, retired granger and carpenter, approaching across lots. His house stood out against the sky at the crest of the slope, about a furlong distant, above my studio, and he had perhaps reached half-way to my window before I had observed him. Something in his walk, his somewhat accelerated pace and evident preoccupied mood, as well as a peculiar position of his extended right hand, foretold that some unusual errand had turned his steps hitherward. With considerable curiosity I endeavored to detect at a distance the specimen which he was bringing, well knowing from experience that I should soon recognize an old friend, which for sixty years had somehow managed to escape the notice of its new discoverer.Half across the meadow I now observed that he held a leaf in his outstretched hand, and now I clearly noted that it was a compound leaf, and in another second I knew it all. For was it not a leaf of the Virginia-creeper or woodbine? andhow many before him have marvelled at that strange exhibition among the woodbine leaves which had now probably met his eyes for the first time? In another moment he was at the piazza stoop, and now he appears at the studio door. Eager anticipation and shortness of breath were equally manifest as he approached my easel and, with his right hand still outstretched towards me, exclaimed, "Well, what ailshim?" at the same time laying down before me the mysterious specimen. It was a leaf of the woodbine, bearing along its stem a cylindrical mass of what appeared to be tiny, oblong, white eggs, all set on end, and so densely packed that but for the head and tail of the shrunken, green caterpillar which appeared at the two extremities of the mass no one would have guessed their origin. "What ails him?""I was sitting on my porch," continued my puzzledvisitor, "and saw the white thing among the leaves, and took a closer look at it, and found it was this. I never saw anything like it before, and I thought perhaps you hadn't either, or, at least, that if you had you could tell me something about it. What ails him, anyhow?"
I had barely closed the note-book when, chancing to glance out of my studio window, I observed a well-known neighbor, a thrifty, retired granger and carpenter, approaching across lots. His house stood out against the sky at the crest of the slope, about a furlong distant, above my studio, and he had perhaps reached half-way to my window before I had observed him. Something in his walk, his somewhat accelerated pace and evident preoccupied mood, as well as a peculiar position of his extended right hand, foretold that some unusual errand had turned his steps hitherward. With considerable curiosity I endeavored to detect at a distance the specimen which he was bringing, well knowing from experience that I should soon recognize an old friend, which for sixty years had somehow managed to escape the notice of its new discoverer.
Half across the meadow I now observed that he held a leaf in his outstretched hand, and now I clearly noted that it was a compound leaf, and in another second I knew it all. For was it not a leaf of the Virginia-creeper or woodbine? andhow many before him have marvelled at that strange exhibition among the woodbine leaves which had now probably met his eyes for the first time? In another moment he was at the piazza stoop, and now he appears at the studio door. Eager anticipation and shortness of breath were equally manifest as he approached my easel and, with his right hand still outstretched towards me, exclaimed, "Well, what ailshim?" at the same time laying down before me the mysterious specimen. It was a leaf of the woodbine, bearing along its stem a cylindrical mass of what appeared to be tiny, oblong, white eggs, all set on end, and so densely packed that but for the head and tail of the shrunken, green caterpillar which appeared at the two extremities of the mass no one would have guessed their origin. "What ails him?"
"I was sitting on my porch," continued my puzzledvisitor, "and saw the white thing among the leaves, and took a closer look at it, and found it was this. I never saw anything like it before, and I thought perhaps you hadn't either, or, at least, that if you had you could tell me something about it. What ails him, anyhow?"
The story was simply told, and my readers who have followed my articles already know what the story is. We remember the strange history of those little, puzzling cocoon clusters on a grass stem, those "bewitched cocoons" which gave birth to swarms of tiny wasps instead of moths, and we realize that here is more of the same sort of mischief, all of which I explained to my good neighbor, to his astonishment. How a few weeks since, when our caterpillar was much smaller than now, a tiny, black midget hovered about him, and, in spite of all his wriggling and squirming, stung him again and again, each time inserting within his body its tiny eggs. Perhaps, and probably in this case, from the number of the white tokens, more than one of the flies took a turn at the unlucky victim, for he certainly seems to have got more than his share.
"These eggs thus inserted beneath the skin of the caterpillar," I explained, "soon hatched into minute white grubs, which immediately fastened themselves upon the tissues within the caterpillar's body, and he is now obliged to eat for thewhole family, which he continues to do without any outward signs of inconvenience or protest, which, of course, would be useless. I fancy he must have frequent attacks of that 'all-gone' feeling that we hear so much about in dyspeptic people, but if he does he gives no hint of it by his looks, as he devours one leaf after another along the stem, and displays his plump proportions with evident pride—like the whole tribe of horny-tailed 'sphinx' caterpillars to which he belongs.
"But a few days ago he had a sudden and terrible experience. He had begun to think of retiring down among the dried leaves on the ground and spinning a cocoon, and there were bright visions of a future life filling his little green head—visions of a life on wings, as quick as thought, in an atmosphere of twilight and fragrance, and all manner of sweet indulgences. But his beautiful dream was interrupted, and probably will remain only as a dream. At one moment we see him in his prime, a perfect specimen for the 'bug-hunter' who is after the larva ofChœrocampa pampinatrix. In ten minutes we look at him again: we find his body shrunken and covered with minute white grubs, all standing on their tails, which are still imbedded in his body; here one barely emerged; here another half enshrouded in a gauzy cocoon; others with their bodies bentinto loops weaving the webby gauze about them, while a few hours hence all are concealed, as we see them now, in the completed long, oval, white cocoons which still remain attached to his body."
"Well," remarked my listener, "I guess he feels pretty sick; if he don't, I vow I feel sick for him. I knew something awful ailed him, but didn't know what. I thought the things were eggs. What's the good of it all, anyhow? What do the cocoons turn into?"I have wished more than once that my friend could have been in my studio the day following his visit, in order to have witnessed the ocular answer to his last question. It was evident that his caterpillar specimen might have been discoveredwith its load of cocoons a fortnight ago, for in the morning, upon opening the box in which I had placed him, a number of tiny black flies flew out, and several of the white cocoons were open at the end, their dainty hinged lids thrown back. Here is one with its black midge just creeping out; others with the tiny imp peeping through the fine crevice; others with the lid still tightly closed, but with its juncture disclosing more distinctly every moment the knavery of the busy teeth within. One by one the silken lids popped up, and out flew the mischievous jack-in-the-box until within the space of a few hours every cocoon was empty. So this is "what ailed him." He has been the victim of the parasitic fly known asmicrogaster.But even now that his mortal enemies have left him, I fancy he is past encouragement or salvation. What will become of him? In his particular case he continued to dwindle and soon died, though in other instances I have known him to recover and reach the chrysalis stage, to complete his transformation into a beautiful olive and red sphinx-moth.
"Well," remarked my listener, "I guess he feels pretty sick; if he don't, I vow I feel sick for him. I knew something awful ailed him, but didn't know what. I thought the things were eggs. What's the good of it all, anyhow? What do the cocoons turn into?"
I have wished more than once that my friend could have been in my studio the day following his visit, in order to have witnessed the ocular answer to his last question. It was evident that his caterpillar specimen might have been discoveredwith its load of cocoons a fortnight ago, for in the morning, upon opening the box in which I had placed him, a number of tiny black flies flew out, and several of the white cocoons were open at the end, their dainty hinged lids thrown back. Here is one with its black midge just creeping out; others with the tiny imp peeping through the fine crevice; others with the lid still tightly closed, but with its juncture disclosing more distinctly every moment the knavery of the busy teeth within. One by one the silken lids popped up, and out flew the mischievous jack-in-the-box until within the space of a few hours every cocoon was empty. So this is "what ailed him." He has been the victim of the parasitic fly known asmicrogaster.
But even now that his mortal enemies have left him, I fancy he is past encouragement or salvation. What will become of him? In his particular case he continued to dwindle and soon died, though in other instances I have known him to recover and reach the chrysalis stage, to complete his transformation into a beautiful olive and red sphinx-moth.
UNDERthe popular name of "locust," our cicada, or harvest-fly, has long enjoyed the reputation as our chief insect musician, vying with the katydid in the volume of its song. We all know its long, whizzing crescendo in the sultry summer days. But let us call things by their right names. This buzzing musician isnotalocust; it is acicada. The true locust is what we ordinarily call a grasshopper, that "high-elbowed grig" of the meadows, so generous with his "molasses," and with such a vigorous kick. He, too, is a musician in a modest way—a fiddler,carrying his "fiddle" on the edge of his folded wing covers, against which he gently grinds out faint, squeaky music, using his thigh-joint as a fiddle-bow. His single efforts are barely audible, but multiplied ten-thousandfold in his great field orchestra, becomes a murmur which may be distinctly heard, and which no doubt all of us have heard without a suspicion as to its source. It is a part of the great musical symphony of the harvest-fields, a roundel sustained and prolonged by the hum of bees and the buzzing of innumerable flies, and the sprightly notes of crickets, attuned to the soft murmur of breeze-blown grass. This meadow music is perceptible to any one who cares to listen for it, but it is rarely noticed. What we call the "quiet" country life, or "the quiet summer noon" of the poet, is a misnomer.The contrast, to the observant ear, between the meadow in a hot July noon and the same meadow on a following cool and overcast day would be remarkable could we but compare the two conditions during the same moment of time. Even a cloud shadow passing over a "quiet" meadow will often suddenly reveal to us hownoisyit really was but a moment before. But the harsh timbrel of the cicada is not a part of this "quiet" music. He is no retiring fiddler hiding somewhere among the grass-blades. His note rings out high abovethe meadow chorus, and he always gets the credit as the chief soloist, and we say, "Hark! there's a 'locust,'" when we ought to know better. Let us try and straighten out this confusion of terms, and let the younger generation at least begin the reform that shall eventually set matters right and correct this wide-spread popular error.
UNDERthe popular name of "locust," our cicada, or harvest-fly, has long enjoyed the reputation as our chief insect musician, vying with the katydid in the volume of its song. We all know its long, whizzing crescendo in the sultry summer days. But let us call things by their right names. This buzzing musician isnotalocust; it is acicada. The true locust is what we ordinarily call a grasshopper, that "high-elbowed grig" of the meadows, so generous with his "molasses," and with such a vigorous kick. He, too, is a musician in a modest way—a fiddler,carrying his "fiddle" on the edge of his folded wing covers, against which he gently grinds out faint, squeaky music, using his thigh-joint as a fiddle-bow. His single efforts are barely audible, but multiplied ten-thousandfold in his great field orchestra, becomes a murmur which may be distinctly heard, and which no doubt all of us have heard without a suspicion as to its source. It is a part of the great musical symphony of the harvest-fields, a roundel sustained and prolonged by the hum of bees and the buzzing of innumerable flies, and the sprightly notes of crickets, attuned to the soft murmur of breeze-blown grass. This meadow music is perceptible to any one who cares to listen for it, but it is rarely noticed. What we call the "quiet" country life, or "the quiet summer noon" of the poet, is a misnomer.
The contrast, to the observant ear, between the meadow in a hot July noon and the same meadow on a following cool and overcast day would be remarkable could we but compare the two conditions during the same moment of time. Even a cloud shadow passing over a "quiet" meadow will often suddenly reveal to us hownoisyit really was but a moment before. But the harsh timbrel of the cicada is not a part of this "quiet" music. He is no retiring fiddler hiding somewhere among the grass-blades. His note rings out high abovethe meadow chorus, and he always gets the credit as the chief soloist, and we say, "Hark! there's a 'locust,'" when we ought to know better. Let us try and straighten out this confusion of terms, and let the younger generation at least begin the reform that shall eventually set matters right and correct this wide-spread popular error.
Our cicada belongs to quite another family of insects. Instead of jaws for biting, as our fiddling "grasshopper," the cicada has only a long "beak for sucking," and this feature alone connects him with the tribe of "bugs." Moreover, his methods of music-making are very different from those of the "grasshopper" tribe. It is the male only that makes the music, and his instrument is a drum. He carries two of these inclosed within his body, the opening of each being covered beneath by a broad plate, which is easily seen on the under surface of the body. Deep within lies the "drum," and the hard and hollow body of the insect acts as a resonator or sounding-board. This drummer does not use his legs as drum-sticks, as might be supposed, his drum being vibrated by twitching muscles and cords.
The method by which the sound is produced may be illustrated by a simple experiment. Take a small piece of stiff, sized writing-paper or smooth Manilla paper, and by pressure with some rounded blunt instrument produce a slight hollow orblister upon its surface. Upon pressure from either side this blister will be found to "snap," and could we but repeat the operation with great rapidity, a continuous sound would result. The toy called the "telegraph ticker" is made on this principle, the blister being made on a strip of steel, and the click produced by pressure upon its top, the elasticity of the metal bringing it back to its original position of rest, and each motion accompanied by a snap as the blister changes sides. Indeed, we need look no further than the bottom of almost any well-ordered tin pan for a complete illustration of this principle. So our cicada is a drummer, and his favorite tune is a "roll-call," the beats following each other with such rapidity as to form a tone. All through the summer we hear his strain. Even at this moment, as I write, a very long-winded specimen is tuning up in the tree just outside my studio window, and I am almost moved to give him some good advice. Have a care, my noisy minstrel. If it were I alone who were within ear-shot of your noise all might be well with you, but there are others near by to whom your music hath charms. Have a care! Only a moment ago I heard an ominous hum on my piazza, and upon investigation discovered a huge sand-hornet prying about the premises. He knows what he is looking for, and so ought you, if your parents have done their dutyby you. Hereditary instinct at least ought to teach you that your drum should play second fiddle to that hornet's humming music. I remember once being the witness of the sad fate of an ancestor of yours who drummed not wisely but too well. He was monopolizing the neighborhood, just as you are doing now, when I noticed his principal effort was suddenly cut short in the middle in a most unusual manner. If he had been a singer I would have supposed some rival had clapped a hand over his mouth, so suddenly was the song abbreviated. In another moment there was a rustling among the leaves, as something fell from the tree in his immediate neighborhood. Down, down it dropped, its passage to the ground accompanied by one or two short, sharp, spasmodic tattoos on that same noisy drum. The object fell among some rocks, but before I could reach the spot the humming sound of a sand-hornet greeted my ears, and in a moment more the insect took flight directly across my path, and, what was more, he was not alone. Would you know who accompanied him? Look then on the picture onpage 252, and have a care, my noisy friend, for the lineal descendant of that sand-hornet now hovers outside my doorway. He has a grudge against your tribe, and he is even now on your scent. Perhaps you may be interested to know what the hornet did with thatrash ancestor of yours. Well, I will tell you, for your own good. Guided by his noisy demonstration, the hornet spied him on his twig, and in a second had pounced upon him and, like a highwayman, stabbed him to the heart with a poisoned javelin. This cut short his song, as you may well suppose, and he fell in the grasp of his assailant. In another moment the hornet got a fresh hold upon him, and though your ancestor, like yourself, was much bigger than the hornet, those powerful, buzzing wings made an easy burden of him for quite a distance across the meadow. Here our captor took a rest, and after tugging that helpless cicada some distance up a high fence-rail, started off on another flight, which was brought to an end in the grass at the foot of a tree. In a moment more the hornet was seen tugging its huge load up the trunk. When some ten feet in height a third flight was made, this time gradually settling down on the roof of a shed down-hill. Tugging his game to the edge of the shed roof, a fourth trip was made, and this landed the two in the neighborhood of a sand bank at the roadside in the valley below.
A sand bank of some sort is usually the terminus of this strange ride of the cicada. Thus far many curious observers have followed the two, and wondered what it was all about. If they had cared to follow the matter to the end, they woulddoubtless have wondered still more at the strange fate which awaited the unlucky harvest-fly, whose last song had been his own requiem. The sand-hornet is also known as the "digger-wasp," the largest of its kind, the most formidable of all our hornets, and carrying within its black, yellow-spotted body a most searching and terrible poisoned sting. It was a common belief in ancient times that "seventeen pricks of a hornet" would "kill a man," to quote from Pliny; and there are manycountry people to-day who would as quickly attack a rattlesnake as this big sand-hornet, and who "absolutely know" of men who have been "knocked down" and even "killed" by one stab of its sting. However this may be, it is well to keep at a respectful distance. When we know what the little yellow-jacket can do with its tiny dagger, and then reflect that this sand-hornet's javelin is about a third of an inch long, we can draw our own conclusions, and will readily understand why it was that our cicada's song was cut short. "But why didn't the hornet eat him on the spot? Why should it fly away with him and yank him about so unmercifully?" This is a common question with those who have observed the episode above described. A visit to the sand bank would have explained the object of it all. The exposed surface is seen to be perforated here and there with holes as large as one's little finger, while from one of them an occasional tiny stream of sand pours out, and we catch a glimpse of the horny, spiked legs of the digger-wasp within. Even as we observe him closely a loud hum is heard, and a filmy, buzzing object falls precipitately upon the bank, and in the jumble of wings and black bodies we now distinguish our hornet and cicada, which only a moment before had started from the edge of the shed roof above. The cicada is apparently dead, and is now an easy prey as thewasp lugs him to the mouth of one of the burrows, and soon disappears in its depths.
Further than this few have followed the couple. But Professor C. V. Riley, our government entomologist, has unearthed the entire mystery, and eye-witnessed the fate of our cicada, and I am thus enabled to picture the rest of the tragedy. What now follows is very similar to what I described in a previous paper concerning the mud-wasp nest packed with its dead spiders. Our cicada is not dead—more's the pity. The thrust of the sting has only paralyzed the insect, in order that the young of the hornet may be provided withlivingfood. From the opening of the tunnel in the sand our harvest-fly was lugged a distance of about six inches, when the tunnel branched in various directions. Down a branch for about eight inches more, and his journey terminated in a dungeon, where his career was doomed to end. Doubtless each of the other branches held one or two similar prisoners, for the cicada is the favorite prey of this particular wasp. Once arrived at the dungeon, the hornet deposits an egg upon its victim, and leaves him in its charge. In a few days it hatches into a larva with such a voracious appetite that within a week it has devoured the contents of the cicada's shell and reached its full growth. It now incloses itself within a silky cocoon, and after abiding the winter emerges at thebrim in the spring a full-fledged hornet, with its mouth watering at the thought of cicadas.
Further than this few have followed the couple. But Professor C. V. Riley, our government entomologist, has unearthed the entire mystery, and eye-witnessed the fate of our cicada, and I am thus enabled to picture the rest of the tragedy. What now follows is very similar to what I described in a previous paper concerning the mud-wasp nest packed with its dead spiders. Our cicada is not dead—more's the pity. The thrust of the sting has only paralyzed the insect, in order that the young of the hornet may be provided withlivingfood. From the opening of the tunnel in the sand our harvest-fly was lugged a distance of about six inches, when the tunnel branched in various directions. Down a branch for about eight inches more, and his journey terminated in a dungeon, where his career was doomed to end. Doubtless each of the other branches held one or two similar prisoners, for the cicada is the favorite prey of this particular wasp. Once arrived at the dungeon, the hornet deposits an egg upon its victim, and leaves him in its charge. In a few days it hatches into a larva with such a voracious appetite that within a week it has devoured the contents of the cicada's shell and reached its full growth. It now incloses itself within a silky cocoon, and after abiding the winter emerges at thebrim in the spring a full-fledged hornet, with its mouth watering at the thought of cicadas.
What a strange wonder-working medicine is this which the hornet carries in its laboratory! In the guise of death it yet prolongs life indefinitely. The ordinary existence of the cicada, for instance, is but a few weeks at most, and yet it is claimed by Mr. Riley that if for any reason the egg of the wasp should fail to hatch, the paralyzed cicada will remain in its condition of suspended animation for a year, and presumably longer.
Here is a suggestion for the materia medicawhich may open up immortal fame to the chemist of the future. What is this mysterious essence which the wasp carries in its poniard? As Professor Riley suggestively remarks, "If man could do what these wasps have done from time immemorial, viz., preserve for an indefinite period the animals they feed on by the simple insertion of some toxic fluid in the tissues, he would be able to revolutionize the present methods of shipping cattle and sheep, and obviate much of the cruelty which now attends the transportation of live-stock and much of the expense involved in cold storage."